At the sound of her voice, Ginnie Wooten stopped thrusting and looked up. She peered at Marlene through the eye holes in her mask and did a slow-motion double-take. Pointing an accusing finger, she snarled, “What the fuck is she doing here?”
Robinson seemed mildly surprised at the reaction.
“She’s a tourist, Ginnie. What’s the problem?”
But Ginnie pulled back, staggering, the dildo coming free with a wet, disgusting noise, and stepped around the swinging man’s legs. She was clearly drugged and seemed to have difficulty keeping her feet. The thing sticking out in front of her groin made eccentric little circles. Marlene felt a laugh bubbling up in her. With difficulty she suppressed it, until the suspended gentleman started trying to look over his shoulder while making inarticulate but puzzled noises through his gag. Then Marlene began to laugh, and once started, she couldn’t stop.
This had an effect on the assembly. Robinson stood up, an annoyed look on his face. Ginnie screamed a curse and took a step toward Marlene. She shouted, “She’s that fucking detective my sister hired. About the-about the-”
“Shut up, Ginnie!” Robinson snarled. For the first time his face showed something other than contemptuous disdain, a slight furrowing of the broad forehead.
Ginnie did not. “She’s-she’s … investigating … you don’t understand … the fucking bitch is … my sister …”
Robinson backhanded her across the face, a solid, meaty blow that knocked her off her six-inch spikes. An interested noise issued from several of the observers. As she fell she grabbed vainly for one of the chains supporting the naked man and started him gyrating like a carnival ride out of control. His muffled cries grew louder and more frantic. Marlene had to lean against the wall to recover. Tears ran from her eyes, and when she wiped them, her hand came away with smeared mascara.
Ginnie was wailing on the floor. Robinson knelt over her and grasped one of her nipple rings. He was saying something in a hissing voice. Marlene could not make out what it was. He twisted the ring cruelly. Ginnie screamed and writhed, kicking her legs against the floor. The other members of the group gathered around, leaning close like a bunch of relatives around a new baby. Marlene chose that moment to slip away, blowing a kiss at the wildly grimacing face of the hanging man.
She found Wolfe in the bar.
“No sign of her,” he said.
“You’ve been asking the wrong people. I found her.”
“And?”
“Oh, I think it’s definitely them. Robinson didn’t make me, but she did. I must have made an impression. She was zonked on something, and she almost gave it up. Robinson had to practically knock her out to keep her quiet. Let’s get out of here.”
“Urn, your, uh”-he gestured to her face-“is all smeared.”
“I know. I was laughing so hard it ran.”
He gave her an odd look but said nothing more as they left the club. The next thing he did say, as they approached his car, was “Oh, shit!”
Marlene looked up, startled, and saw that two youths had the door of Wolfe’s car open. Wolfe yelled and ran toward them, Marlene following at a totter, cursing the over-long heels. One of the youths saw Wolfe coming and shouted, and the other one slid like an otter from under the dash, holding the stereo unit. They both took off, track shoes flashing under the streetlights, with Wolfe right after them. Marlene called out once and then gave up as they vanished down First Street, heading toward the Lower East Side. She sighed and lit a cigarette, leaning on Wolfe’s car. She doubted he would catch them in his new engineer boots.
After a cigarette plus ten minutes worth of waiting, Marlene began to feel stiff and chilled. The rain had stopped, but it was damp and the air was misty, making rings around the streetlights and softening the neon of the signs. She thought of calling a cab, but it was not much more than a half mile to home and the weather was ideal for a brisk midnight walk through the city. And she was armed.
East Houston Street was still jumping, of course: cruising cars and cabs were hissing in numbers down the broad, wet street, and the sidewalks were thick with little knots of people, mostly young and looking for a good time. Dressed as she was, Marlene got numerous offers from carloads of young men from Jersey, but nobody gave her any trouble.
She turned south on Mulberry Street. Passing Old St. Patrick’s, she paused at the steps to tighten and retie the laces of her boots, which, she had discovered, had been designed for walking on faces rather than sidewalks. Finished, her eye was attracted to something moving within the shadows of the Gothic archway. A man, in a long black coat: she could tell he was watching her. She tensed, and then relaxed when the man moved slightly and she saw the faint flash of white at his neck. A priest. But not Father Raymond-he was not the sort to be standing in the doorways of churches at midnight.
Intrigued, Marlene waved and called out, “Good evening, Father!”
The priest waved back and stepped forward into the light from the street lamp. He was a blocky man, not tall, about fifty, his dark hair in a vaguely European-looking brush cut. His face was an Irish one of the bony and beaky rather than the smooth, pug-nosed type, with the eyes shadowed under bushy eyebrows.
Marlene smiled up at him and he smiled back. She took a crumpled pack of Marlboros and lit one. There was something about strolling down a night street on a damp night that called out for ciggies, and she decided to invest one of her rationed daily half pack in the experience.
“Ah,” said the priest, “here I was yearning for a cigarette and not wanting to go back to the rectory.”
Marlene held out the pack and her Zippo. The priest walked down the steps and took them, lit up, inhaled gratefully. “A filthy habit,” he said. He had pale blue eyes that seemed colorless under the orange sodium light. They were intelligent eyes, she thought, yet with a sliding-away quality that masked considerable pain.
“You’re new at Old St. Pat’s,” Marlene observed. She recognized his voice, of course.
He gave her an appraising look, taking in her costume. “A parishioner, are you?”
“A regular communicant,” said Marlene. She held out her hand. “Marlene Ciampi.”
He took it. “Michael Dugan.” He paused. “So. What brings you down Mulberry Street on a fine soft night like this?”
“It’s a long story, Father. I’m just walking home from … I guess you could say work.” She saw his expression change to one of pastoral concern and quickly added, “I’m a private detective, Father. I was at a sadomasochistic club as part of an investigation.”
A grin flashed across his face that took twenty years off it. He chuckled. “Allow me to compliment you on your disguise. A sadomasochistic club, hm? I’ve always wondered what such places were like.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You know, homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto?”
They smiled and exchanged a little Catholic moment, dense with information about each other. Of course she would understand the tag, hence educated in a very good convent school; he could quote Terence with a perfect accent, hence almost certainly a Jesuit elaborately overeducated for a curacy in a poky city parish.
She said, “Believe me, Father, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with S-M clubs.”
“No,” he said reflectively, as if he had been seriously considering it. “No, I suppose you’re right. Although some would say that I’m already in one.”
They both laughed. He had a loud one, although it seemed out of use, rusty. Marlene asked, “And what about you, Father? What brings you here?”
“Here? It’s a church. I’m a priest.” Blandly.